Pre Tet in Vietnam!

As I said in an earlier blog post, Andy and I were only allowed a day and a half off from work for Christmas- so needless to say we were super excited to have two whole weeks off for the Chinese New Year Tet. Prior to our big trip to Indonesia Andy and I made sure to do some fun things around Vietnam.


Right after New Years we had a couple of days off so we took a fast boat to the beach at Vung Tau. The boat ride was only an hour long and before we knew it we were at one of the most popular beach vacation destinations for the local Vietnamese people. Weekends are supposedly packed- but we were there on a Tuesday night and it seemed that we were the only tourists in town. It was nice to get out of the city and it was SO close- but I am not too sure how much Andy and I want to go back to visit the beach at Vung Tau. The ABOVE picture is a statue over looking the ocean atop a huge hill.

One Friday night we both MIRACULOUSLY had the night off- so we decided to go see the Water Puppet Show! It had great reviews on trip adviser and we need to do more crazy things around the city so this was a good opportunity. It was magical! The above picture is of Andy posing with a large statue of a puppet after the show.

Anyone who comes to visit us needs to go to the show. Water puppets dance above the water (we still do not know how they were controlled by the puppeteers) while a band plays traditional Vietnamese songs and speaks for the puppets.

Traditional Vietnamese food made in preparation for Tet!

My Teachers Assistant Sue (she graciously lets me call her by her English name because her Vietnamese name starts with NG. This is one of the hardest things to pronounce without sounding like I am mentally challenged)  came over to teach me how to cook a traditional meal. And by teach me how to cook- I REALLY MEAN she did all the prep work at home and came over to cook it at our house. I was given the task of stirring. :)

This dish was made with chives, corn, dried squid, and some kind of meat.

Andy loved it until he found out that one of the ingredients was dried squid... you couldn't even taste it! I really liked it- the corn made it sweet.

This dish is a sticky rice that Sue told me takes over night to make! She says its a tradition for family members to stay up all night and trade off who watches the rice. It is then wrapped in banana leaves and must be eaten once you unwrap it. It then can be fried (the main piece in the picture) or can be eaten cold (the smaller piece on the right)

Yummay. But I don't know how much I could disturb my beauty sleep in order to make a dish. I thought a turkey on Thanksgiving was bad!

Thanks Sue!

Next post- BALI!!!!!!!
Love
Lauren